Media libraries often use so-called travelling elevators as accessing mechanisms for transferring record media (tape, disks, cards etc. that preferably are in a housing) between any one of a plurality of media storage compartments (also termed receptacles) and media devices (also termed players or recorders). Such travelling elevators consist of a horizontally movable carriage disposed for movement along an open face of an array of media compartments. Each compartment has an access opening facing the carriage. A vertically movable elevator is mounted on the carriage for carrying a media holder vertically of the array. In this manner, any one of the media compartments in the array can be accessed. One or more media drives are usually disposed within the array such that the accessing mechanism can transfer record media between the media drives and the media storage compartments. An example of such a library is shown by Kulakowski et al in U.S. Pat. No. 5,303,214.
A problem with the travelling-elevator access mechanisms is high cost of construction and operation. It is desired to provide low-cost efficient small size media libraries that enable a low cost accessing mechanism that may serve multiple library operational requirements. Such operational requirements include accessing media storage compartments, multi-record-media accessing and library input-output (IO) operations of inserting and removing record media into and from a record media library. Simplifying design also tends to improve reliability of library operations.